Vets recall Guam’s day of infamy

Attack on Pearl Harbor overshadowed invasion

Retired Marine Sgt. Maj. Harris Chuck, 91, of Vista was a young private first class stationed on Guam on Dec. 8, 1941, when the Japanese began bombing the tiny U.S. military outpost. Months later, Japanese forces invaded. Several hundred defenders, including Chuck, were taken prisoner and spent the war in POW camps.
— K.C. Alfred / Union-Tribune

Retired Marine Sgt. Maj. Harris Chuck, 91, of Vista was a young private first class stationed on Guam on Dec. 8, 1941, when the Japanese began bombing the tiny U.S. military outpost. Months later, Japanese forces invaded. Several hundred defenders, including Chuck, were taken prisoner and spent the war in POW camps.
— K.C. Alfred / Union-Tribune

Marine Sgt. Maj. Harris Chuck (left) was pictured with his son Thomas E. Chuck at a pinning ceremony in the late 1960s. Harris Chuck retired from the Marines in 1970.

Tom Nixon was wounded during the Japanese bombing of Guam on Dec. 8, 1941. The Murrieta resident, 87, said he is in a wheelchair today because of malnutrition he suffered as a POW working at a rock quarry.John Gastaldo / Union-Tribune

Tom Nixon was wounded during the Japanese bombing of Guam on Dec. 8, 1941. The Murrieta resident, 87, said he is in a wheelchair today because of malnutrition he suffered as a POW working at a rock quarry.

Flag ceremony in San Diego: Pearl Harbor survivors, a Marine color guard, lawmakers and others will join students at the John Muir magnet school for the 8:55 a.m. event. 4431 Mount Herbert Ave. (858) 277-2533.

At ceremonies nationwide today, aging survivors of the Dec. 7, 1941, sneak attack on Pearl Harbor will gather to remember a day that President Franklin Roosevelt famously declared would “live in infamy.”

That day remains known as Pearl Harbor Day. San Diego is home to the largest group of military survivors of the attack that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Less remembered is that within hours of the assault on Hawaii, Japanese forces attacked other U.S. military bases in the Pacific, including the Philippines, Wake Island, Midway and Guam.

Unlike at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese followed up those attacks with invasions and brutal occupations. Nearly all of the defenders either died or were taken captive for the rest of World War II.

On Guam, 150 Marines guarded the small central Pacific island, supplemented by about 300 Navy personnel assigned to a hospital and a vintage minesweeper, and a few hundred local forces.

“The guys on Guam, they were a footnote,” said Roger Mansell of Palo Alto, founder of the Web site Center for Research on Allied POWs under the Japanese. “After Pearl Harbor, Guam just disappeared off the radar.”

Harris Chuck of Vista and Tom Nixon of Murrieta were Marines based in Guam in December 1941. Both men say they have never forgotten the shock of being in the gunsights of Japanese Zeros and “Pete” bombers swooping low from the sky.

“We were being chased by a (expletive) fighter plane that was shooting us!” said Chuck, 92, still amazed by the memory.

Nixon, 87, was in charge of the barracks the morning of Dec. 8 (Guam is beyond the international date line). Some had heard rumors of the Pearl Harbor attack at morning chow, but Nixon hadn’t.

The barracks were targeted in the first bombing run. The Marines raced out of the building and to their battle stations.

As Nixon scrambled out of the building, he saw a Marine whose legs had been riddled by shrapnel. Nixon slung him over his shoulder and started running across the golf course that surrounded the barracks. He hit the deck when another bomber dived toward them.

“I laid him on the ground, and I jumped on top of him to protect him,” Nixon said. “A bomb exploded so close, I could put my hand in the crater. I still have problems from the shrapnel wounds.”